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I feel like another problem SEED has in regards to its Gundam’s is that there’s a lot of them around, and how they’re classified is an absolute *mess*.

SEED has a lot of gundams, and the classification for them is that they have an advanced operating system that forms the acronym GUNDAM. There are however, roughly six different systems this applies to, so what a Gundam is is still somewhat inexact. I seem to recall the original series making a heroic effort to sell phase shift armour (the fancy anti-ballistic armour) as the gundam’s main selling point but this gets abandoned partway through.

It feels like a lot of the reasons as to why there are other gundams in seed work in a vacuum, but then they went and chose all of them:

Five original units, four were stolen, one remains (Duel, Blitz, Buster, Aegis and Strike).

One unit, with multiple equipment packs (Strike).

Upgrades/Dark reflections of the original three unit types (Calamity, Raider and Forbidden).

Big fancy upgrades to the main two units using new tech (Freedom and Justice).

Suit Built by/for the Main Antagonist (Providence).

Duplicate unit of the main Gundam assembled from spare parts (Strike Rouge).

Like, any one or two of those would probably have worked just fine, but they chose all of them. So it just becomes this arms race of “who’s Gundam is the most Gundam” without any real point of reference.

Thing is, Freedom and Justice are actually a step up from the rest, since they’re fitted with Neutron-Jammer cancellers, allowing them to mount nuclear reactors, and by extension achieve much better performance. It’s just that by the time they’re introduced there’s no real way to accurately *show* that, since every other gundam’s already regularly shown taking out scores of foes.

I’m under the impression that the reason as to why SEED has so many Gundams (from an out-of-universe perspective) is because they sell better than the non-Gundam models, so Seed had a lot of them right out of the gate.

To expand further on the thought “does introducing more gundam’s in a spin-off cheapen the original?” I’d have to say…… kinda?

Honestly I’ve read enough side materials that I’m used to it at this point, and Gundams are attractive prospects, both in-universe and out, but it does evoke some pondering. But they can be contrasts with the mainline characters, and they can further expand the world and show

I tend to look on it on a case-by-case basis. Generally it’s down to if I can squint and see it make sense in universe. Sort of like a “well, I guess I can see that”. Some of the examples I’m gonna talk about here also benefit from being implicitly or explicitly weaker than the “main” Gundam’s.

First up, Gundam 00f. Concerning the actions of Celestial Being’s support team, fereshte during the actions of the series.

Adding a total of five new Gundam’s to the series, not counting the “black” variants (since they’re explicitly hollow reproductions) (Astraea, Sadalsuud, Aubhool, Plutone and Raisel)

Generally, I think it works well, since the aforementioned gundams are prototypes of the ones seen in series, being weaker than the ones used by the main characters. They show progression from the 0 Gundam and shed more light on Celestial Being as an organisation. The gundams used by Fereshte are only as effective as they are due to the pilot’s experience and the fact that they don’t draw as much attention to themselves.

New mobile report Gundam Wing G-Unit (sometimes called Gundam: the last outpost). About the Space Colony M-OV and it’s mobile suit development during the main series.

Adding a total of seven new gundams to the series (Geminass 1&2, LO Booster, Aescelpius, Burnlapius, Hydra and Greipe)

Though I do love it……. Seven Gundams is too much, even if you be charitable and don’t count the LO booster. I’m willing to overlook the Geninass units (they look like Gundams and are made of Gundanium alloy, but in-universe it’s either coincidental or the creator had inside knowledge on Operation Meteor) and the Hydra (it’s presented as an answer of sorts to the Epyon, and it’s pilot absolutely strikes me as the sort of person who would build a Gundam to spite Treize), but the other three just feel excessive, considering the amount of time and resources it would take to build them (even including the fact that they’re quite modular).

While it is a nice expansion, I can’t say it adds much to the world of Wing other than the existence of a colony somewhere and maybe a look at how OZ manipulated the colonies.

(I’m also ignoring the retelling that’s supposed to be coming out, since I know nothing about it other than it adds two more Gundams)

Gundam X Astray. A Gundam SEED sidestory and continuation of Gundam Astray.

Astray is a weird side series to me. It feels like the reason why it’s about Astray units is that they realised they had too many Gundam’s and needed something different.

Anyway, this sidestory adds 4 new Gundams (Hyperion Gundam unit 1-3 (though only 1&2 show up) and the Dreadnought Gundam (or the X Astray)).

Honestly, I think this one uses the Gundam’s really, really well. Spoilers follow regarding the mobile suits and their pilots.

The Hyperion Gundam (Piloted by Canard Pars) is a Gundam built by the Eurasian Federation of the Earth Alliance in order to break the Atlantic Federation’s monopoly on mobile suit technology which they gained from the G-Weapons in the original series. I love this, because it shows the Earth Alliance as not being a monolith. It’s shows their individual members jockeying for power, how they engage in realpolitik against other members, and generally helps the Earth alliance come across as a lot more varied than in the show (all the good people die, then all the racists take over). But the Eurasian Federation isn’t actually that good at making mobile suits - they can make something roughly equal to the G-weapons on paper, but they add the umbrella of Artemis tech to it, since that’s really what they are good at. As a result, it’s a very powerful unit- for all of five minutes before the power runs out.

The Hyperion Gundam (the one with the big red cross on its back) is the prototype unit that was a proof-of-concept for the Freedom and Justice. And it’s piloted by a pacifist, Prayer Reverie. But what does he want to do with this colossal weapon? He wants to take it to Earth, and use the tech inside (N-Jammer Canceller) to end the energy crisis. Hey, an actual peaceful use for a weapon of war, that’s pretty good. Also, Prayer isn’t that good of a pilot - but the Dreadnought’s so strong, he doesn’t really need to be. It illustrates how big of a deal the N-Jammer Canceller tech on a mobile suit is (Notwithstanding the fact that the dreadnought can just fly there, it doesn’t need a ship or anything).

I unfortunately haven’t read enough of IBO Gekko to weigh in on Argi and the Astaroth specifically, but I think that Iron-Blooded Orphans handled this really well too. As you said, without the Alaya-Vijyana Gundam frames aren’t really that monstrous, but they are still generally a cut above regular mobile suits due to the twin reactors. However, they’re very, very limited in-universe. There were only ever 72 made, and I believe it’s stated somewhere that only ~30 of them survived? It’s a nice solid limit on how many there are and where they can show up, and that’s not even considering the fact that Gjallarhorn must control a few of them through the Seven Stars (doesn’t remove them, but it limits where they can be). By explicitly calling them out as being a finite thing, it really sells them as being special. But since it happens right at the start, we already know, it doesn’t get sprung on you later. In addition, since we know that they fought in and, more to the point, survived something like the Calamity War already sells them as powerful things in the right hands. They have pedigree, they have mystique and they’re rare enough for those to matter. Lastly, it’s made pretty clear by how Akihiro and Shino fight that a good part of the reason why Barbatos is so effective is because of Mikazuki. The spin-off units are still effective, but Barbatos is an absolute demon. It really sells Rustal using Dainsleif’s on them as even more pragmatic than it was originally.

@gremoria411​ - hope you don’t mind, I’m going to pull out the response to your comment as a post since I’m not sure I can answer in the word limit!

Would you mind expanding on how you believe Wing and Iron Blooded Orphans effectively managed multiple Gundams in a single show?

It’s not a fully-formed idea, but what I mean is something like this:

In Gundam Wing, the Gundams retain their special status right the way through to the end of Endless Waltz. They’re unique, deadly, practically indestructible and it’s a really big deal that Wing Zero and Epyon even exist, because it’s well established you can’t easily build more of them. Dumb as the word is, the idea behind gundanium is pretty smart. These things are never going to be mass-produced and they’re not going to be equaled in battle, either, because the reason they can blast through hundreds upon hundreds of mobile dolls is literally built into them at the conceptual level.

Iron-Blooded Orphans plays with the same kind of thing regarding these machines being a cut above everything else, but ultimately establishes the opposite situation: Gundams weren’t originally ‘rare’ (72 'suits is a very high number by IBO standards), they’re palpably not exceptionally resistant to harm, and in most people’s hands, they don’t perform that much better than the machines they’re fighting. The thing that turns them into kill-everything monsters is gate-kept behind very severe conditions, so it never feels like battles will become trivial by simply having more of them in play.

That last point is why I felt it worth mentioning. What struck me about SEED is that by the time you have Calamity, Raider and Forbidden on screen, it is very hard to take them seriously. They’re Gundams (implicitly, I know the term is not actually used widely in SEED) and unique (not mass-production models like the Astrays), so they should feel like a big deal. But they don’t. They get their backsides handed to them *repeatedly*, because the narrative has to pile on the specialness of Freedom and Justice so they stand out in a swarm of similarly ‘main-character-coded’ ‘suits. It’s trying to have its cake and eat it in terms of how significant Gundams are.

It’s interesting to consider how the different shows chose to handle that, with the extreme ‘only a single Gundam’ model from the 79 series and Turn A at one pole and G Fighter’s complete genericising of the term at the other.

(There’s probably another axis to this thought which is ‘does introducing more Gundams in a spin-off cheapen the original?’ For Wing, the answer is obviously ‘yes’, because of the aforementioned rarity and the colonies not being able to roll them out by the hundreds. For IBO, it’s ‘no’, because the uniqueness is offset on to the pilots. Argi Mirage rolling around in Astaroth isn’t a big deal because Argi is so far below Mika’s level, it’s almost funny. A SEED spin-off could introduce as many Gundams as it liked [and I believe they did] to no effect because the term is already relatively diluted.)

Ah! Something that I have just realised.

In regards to the Gundam Hyperion and Dreadnought Gundam from X Astray, my description of them may have misrepresented what the plot is actually about.

*Spoilers follow for the plot of SEED X Astray*

The plot of X Astray primarily concerns their pilots Carnard Pars and Prayer Reverie. Lowe Guel and the rest of the characters from SEED Astray show up, but they’re really not there for much other than to effect repairs to the Dreadnought and Provide Prayer with a nice home base and someone to talk to.

Canard Pars (left, in a rare moment of calm) is a failed attempt to create the Ultimate Coordinator, which would eventually result in Kira Yamato. Because of this, Canard wants to find and kill Kira , in order to prove once and for all that he isn’t a failure. He’s essentially your standard “fighting is all I know” character. Since the ultimate coordinator project was destroyed by blue cosmos, Canard gets picked up by the Eurasian Federation of the Earth Alliance and is used as one of their test pilots. His obsession with defeating Kira leads to both an obsession with power, and him fighting with any Gundam-type unit he comes across.

Prayer Reverie is the pilot of the Dreadnought Gundam. I *think* he’s one of Al Da Flaga’s clones, like Rau le Creuset (he states he’s a clone of a EA pilot with incredible spatial awareness) but I can’t find a source that explicitly backs that up. Prayer’s kinda weird honestly, since a lot of material treats him as an actual bona-fide newtype, in a setting that doesn’t *have* newtypes. Regardless, he’s presented as a counter to Canard - he also has the genetic disposition towards combat, hence why he’s the pilot of the Dreadnought, but he’s chosen a life of pacifism. Canard wants to fight him to steal the N-Jammer Canceller, which would enable the Hyperion to run its Umbrella of Artemis infinitely, and thus become nigh-unbeatable, granting him the power to match Kira Yamato.

Most of the manga is spent establishing who and what the players are and building up to the final confrontation between Canard and Prayer. This includes the Eurasian Federation ceasing Development on the Hyperion Gundam’s and (attempting to) betray Canard due to the events of the main series happening:

1. The Atlantic Federation recover the Data from the Strike, leading to the deployment of the mass-production Strike Daggers as the main force of the Earth Alliance. This essentially invalidates the Eurasian Federation’s Hyperion project, since there’s no point furthering development on the units when they already have the Strike Dagger.

2. The Earth Alliance (specifically the Atlantic Federation) acquires the N-jammer canceller technology when Rau le Creuset leaks it to them from ZAFT. This makes the Eurasian Federation’s efforts to recover the Dreadnought Gundam Pointless (Canard wants it for power, the Eurasian Federation wants it to increase their standing in the Alliance) and makes Prayer’s plan to take the Dreadnought’s N-Jammer to earth to solve the energy crisis a moot point.

So, while the Eurasian Federation Jockeying for Power and Prayer’s efforts are certainly part of the manga, they’re not exactly the main focus.

They are however, baked into the mobile suit backstories, which is why I like the Dreadnought and Hyperion as additional Gundam’s to SEED (well, that and the fact that SEED’s already got a lot of additional units running about).

@gremoria411​ - hope you don’t mind, I’m going to pull out the response to your comment as a post since I’m not sure I can answer in the word limit!

Would you mind expanding on how you believe Wing and Iron Blooded Orphans effectively managed multiple Gundams in a single show?

It’s not a fully-formed idea, but what I mean is something like this:

In Gundam Wing, the Gundams retain their special status right the way through to the end of Endless Waltz. They’re unique, deadly, practically indestructible and it’s a really big deal that Wing Zero and Epyon even exist, because it’s well established you can’t easily build more of them. Dumb as the word is, the idea behind gundanium is pretty smart. These things are never going to be mass-produced and they’re not going to be equaled in battle, either, because the reason they can blast through hundreds upon hundreds of mobile dolls is literally built into them at the conceptual level.

Iron-Blooded Orphans plays with the same kind of thing regarding these machines being a cut above everything else, but ultimately establishes the opposite situation: Gundams weren’t originally ‘rare’ (72 ‘suits is a very high number by IBO standards), they’re palpably not exceptionally resistant to harm, and in most people’s hands, they don’t perform that much better than the machines they’re fighting. The thing that turns them into kill-everything monsters is gate-kept behind very severe conditions, so it never feels like battles will become trivial by simply having more of them in play.

That last point is why I felt it worth mentioning. What struck me about SEED is that by the time you have Calamity, Raider and Forbidden on screen, it is very hard to take them seriously. They’re Gundams (implicitly, I know the term is not actually used widely in SEED) and unique (not mass-production models like the Astrays), so they should feel like a big deal. But they don’t. They get their backsides handed to them *repeatedly*, because the narrative has to pile on the specialness of Freedom and Justice so they stand out in a swarm of similarly ‘main-character-coded’ ‘suits. It’s trying to have its cake and eat it in terms of how significant Gundams are.

It’s interesting to consider how the different shows chose to handle that, with the extreme ‘only a single Gundam’ model from the 79 series and Turn A at one pole and G Fighter’s complete genericising of the term at the other.

(There’s probably another axis to this thought which is ‘does introducing more Gundams in a spin-off cheapen the original?’ For Wing, the answer is obviously ‘yes’, because of the aforementioned rarity and the colonies not being able to roll them out by the hundreds. For IBO, it’s ‘no’, because the uniqueness is offset on to the pilots. Argi Mirage rolling around in Astaroth isn’t a big deal because Argi is so far below Mika’s level, it’s almost funny. A SEED spin-off could introduce as many Gundams as it liked [and I believe they did] to no effect because the term is already relatively diluted.)

A question I've been half-pondering since you posted some of your thoughts of G-Witch -- are there any series that you think do particularly neat things with design lineages (either aesthetically or otherwise)?

Obviously in G-Witch, you've got this lovely variety in mobile suit design, with each corporation having a different, easily-identifiable style. But there's also things like how both styles of 'suit in Gundam Wing (Gundams and Leos et al) trace back to Tallgeese, so you have a 'progenitor' mecha running around.

Oooh, that is a fun one. Off the top of my head I can think of around two series that do really interesting things with Mobile Suit Design Lineages, Mobile Suit Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans and Mobile Suit Gundam 00, but Gundam Wing, Witch From Mercury, SEED and the Universal Century in General all have examples worth discussing.

Note: I hit the character limit here, so this post’ll just be part one, and contains my thoughts on 3/4 of the main units in 00. I’ll talk about the fourth and other series in a subsequent post.

Admittedly, most of these are the titular Gundam’s design lineage, but there’s enough grunts that are worth discussing too.

First of all, Gundam 00

I’ll fully admit the above graphic is overkill for what I’m going to actually be discussing, but I think the design lineages of the four main Gundam’s is very very good, because each unit is clearly delineated into a speciality. (I’m gonna define them by their Third Generation Entry, since that’s the ones in the first season of the show).

Exia - Blue, with a focus on close quarters combat (I.E. Swords, to the point its original developmental code was “Seven Swords”).

Dynames - Green, with a focus on long range and sniping.

Kyrios - Orange, a transforming mobile suit that has high mobility.

Virtue - Black and White (sometimes with purple), Initially seems to be the Heavy Weapon Gundam, then later you realise it’s just full of absolute bullshit. It’s great I love it.

The second season, movie and side manga all add to this development line, so you can see how each concept develops over time. It also provides alternate equipment options for the main units, variants on a theme if you will. (I’m going to ramble a lot here, so I’ll identify which unit I’m talking about in bold).

Exia, for example, is the melee Gundam, one of two Gundam’s designed to primarily deal with any traitors to Celestial Being (I should do an analysis post on 00 sometime……, anyway). It accomplishes this by incorporating weaponry specifically designed to get around GN defences which, at the time of its inception, is unique to celestial being (this is why it’s got solid swords in addition to beam weapons). Its immediate predecessor, the Astraea, is probably the most stable of the original second-generation gundams - it’s designed for melee combat and doesn’t incorporate much experimental systems into the mobile suit itself. Because of this stability, it’s typically used for testing weaponry slated for other Gundam’s, such as the proto GN Launcher. This is further evidenced when it’s modified into the Astraea F by the Celestial Being support organisation Fereshte, since it’s the mobile suit of choice for that organisation when circumstances don’t demand a different unit, again because of that versatility. The Exia’s successor is the 00 Gundam (which I habitually just roll into the 00 Raiser, since it’s only around for about three episodes). The 00 Gundam is fitted with two GN Drives instead of the standard one, which should give in a far greater output. In practice, it needs to be fitted with the 0 Raiser, a little stabilisation plane thing, in order to run stably. This becomes the standard loadout for the Gundam, and it becomes the 00 Raiser. The 00 Raiser has slightly less swords than its predecessor the Exia, but makes up for this by incorporating the Raiser Sword, which essentially turns the entire Gundam into a sword hilt. The 00 Gundam’s Variants, the 00 Seven Swords and XN Raiser are essentially the 00 Gundam with even more swords and bladed weapons bolted to the frame (I’d like to specifically call out the Seven Swords for having GN Katars, which is just neat, honestly). As Setsuna’s penultimate suit, we have the 00 Quanta, which dares to ask the question “laser-shooting psychic swords?”, and can also freely teleport, just in case you thought distance was going to make this easier. The 00 Quanta Full Saber is probably what you’d expect by this point - the 00 Quanta with a bunch of extra swords strapped to it. (The ELS Quanta’s not, strictly speaking, a combat Gundam, so I tend to look at it as its own thing). The Exia line starts off basic, but eventually takes the concept of “sword” to greater and more ridiculous levels.

Dynames, is a sniper, but it develops very differently to the other Gundams. The original Dynames and its successor Cherudim were developed for Neil Dylandy, an excellent sniper. However, the Cherudim and its successors were piloted by Neil’s brother Lyle instead. Lyle was not as good a sniper as his brother, and so his Gundam’s were subsequently reconfigured in order to be more effective in large-scale combat - rapid fire rifles and submachine guns as opposed to “true sniping”. So, though the line shares several visual elements and retains a focus on ranged combat, it changes with its pilot.The Dynames was armed rather simply - a sniper rifle and two pistols, with supplemental armour being added. This is likely a direct response to its predecessor, the Sadalsuud. The Sadalsuud is notable for two reasons - it was configured more as an information-gathering unit than a combat machine, and it was notably lacking in armour. The Sadalsuud F incorporated a pinpoint GN Field in order to get around this issue, but the Dynames simply incorporated more armour as a result (likely due to practicality). The Gundam Cherudim, Dynames successor, incorporated missile pods and GN shield bits in addition to its pistols and sniper rifle, with its GWHW/R pack adding GN Rifle bits to the mix, giving the Cherudim far more guns to use. Another equipment pack, the Cherudim SAGA, even went so far as to be a “Seven Guns” counterpart to the Exia’s “Seven Swords” philosophy. Lastly, there is the Gundam Zabanya, which incorporated GN Rifle Bits and GN Holster bits, casting off its original sniping specialisation for a mass battle focus. “You don’t need to be a better shot, you need to shoot more bullets”, indeed. The Dynames line shows the progression from scout, to sniper, to more sniper, to Gundam with a billion guns. This is directly due to the influence of its pilot and the difference between the brothers - Neil’s a Sniper, Lyle’s a Gunslinger and so the line is adjusted accordingly.

The Kyrios is probably the simplest to talk about, since it was piloted by Allelujah/Hallelujah Haptism and was designed to maximise its aerial profile. The Kyrios itself was armed with beam sabers, a beam submachine gun and claw shield, with various optional missile packs, typically used in quick strikes. Its immediate predecessor, the Aubulhool, was barely a mobile suit at all, being essentially a proof-of-concept for the transformation mechanism. Nonetheless, it would also be used as a quick strike craft by celestial being when required. The Arios is essentially the Kyrios but more so - it has a new rifle, and the original beam submachine guns and claw shield have now been integrated into the mobile suit itself. The GWHW/M pack gives it a missile pod and swaps the rifle out for a GN Cannon. The Arios is also unique in that it incorporates a support mech - the GN Archer, which is essentially a smaller, simpler Arios for all intents and purposes (it’s not on the chart, but it was adapted from the Gundam Artemie, the bee-looking Gundam at the top-right). The Arios Ascalon is essentially the Arios fitted with various pieces of equipment originally slated for other units - a GN sword from the Exia, missiles from the Dynames and a GN Launcher from the Virtue. This makes it far more versatile, while still retaining its excellent mobility. It’s another one I’m quite fond of, simply because I find the versatility appealing. That and I think the Arios looks good in red. The last unit in the line is the Gundam Harute - designed from the ground-up as a two-man space superiority fighter. It’s also designed to leverage the abilities of its two/three super-soldier pilots, incorporating the Marute Mode which allows its pilots to fight in-sync (it’s…. Not quite clear how it does this, but 00 runs with the “quantum innovators understanding” stuff quite a bit, so I’m not too concerned). The Harute also incorporates GN Sword Rifles, which are scissor gun-swords (fun), as well as GN Scissor bits and a nice lovely missile container on the rear. Kyrios and its derivatives are largely concerned with doing the same thing - a fast attack plane that’s also a Gundam. It’s a very good, very achievable concept, so it’s neat seeing how the line develops over time. I’d like to note that the Harute is basically a culmination of everything that came before it, but considering I’m quite fond of it, perhaps I’m a little biased there.

I’ll talk about Virtue and other series in a follow up to this post, since I managed to hit the character limit for the first time.

But in essence, I think 00 does interesting things with its Gundam Design Lineages because each unit has a specific role, so it’s interesting seeing how they develop within that role, and seeing how their pilots influence them. The vast amount of other units added in supplemental material further sheds light on the in-universe development patterns and general “goals” of each unit. Exia retains the sword focus, but takes it in more esoteric directions as Setsuna himself moves toward his awakening as an innovator, Dynames undergoes a shift from sniping to gunslinging when its original pilot dies and celestial being replaced him with his brother (which is a very weird process, now that I think about it). Kyrios basically hits the nail on the head first time with its mobility and fast attack focus, with Arios basically just adding armaments, however his eventual understanding with Marie enables the addition of the GN Archer and eventual development of the Zabanya, which raises its mobility to even greater heights. On the other side of the coin, the units seen during 00P and 00F provide context for their successors - what worked and what didn’t, and how they developed.